Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Outdoor cat grabs attention

First there was Misty, the wandering cat who tormented Briargate. Then Cocoa, the cat who divided neighbors in Vista Mesa.

Now there's Tez, a lovable, big black cat upsetting people in University Park, near Union and Academy boulevards.

This is a cat tale with a twist.

Tez named for an Aztec rain god isn't tormenting neighbors by stalking birds at feeders, using flower beds for a toilet, biting kids or other common problem cat behavior.

Seems Kathleen Taylor, 73, just doesn't approve of the way Nicholas and Kari Lezama are raising Tez.

"They keep him in the garage," Taylor said. "Then they let him out and he shows up at my door, cold and crying."

The Lezamas say Tez is a happy, 10-year-old cat that has enjoyed life out-ofdoors. He simply can't come inside because one of the Lezama's children is allergic to cats.

"He sleeps in our insulated, warm garage," Nicholas Lezama said. "We keep the door cracked so he can come and go during the day. Everything was fine until our neighbor started feeding him."

Taylor said she met Tez on Halloween, a bitterly cold night. "This large, very beautiful black cat was at my door, crying and shivering," she said.

Tez had lost his collar so Taylor let him in her garage and fed him. "I was worried about him in there cold and alone so I went in during the night," she said. "He came over and I petted him and he just purred and purred."

Taylor would have liked to have kept Tez, but she lives with her daughter and her family and they have two cats. She turned Tez over to the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak region and went door-to-door looking for his owner.

She found the Lezamas, who retrieved Tez from the pound.

"I got him a new collar that identifies him as an outdoor cat," Kari Lezama said. She told Taylor to leave Tez outside and he'd be fine.

But Tez kept returning, and Taylor kept opening the door.

The Lezamas say Tez goes back because Taylor keeps a full bowl of cat food outside to feed a wild Persian living nearby.

"Of course he goes back there," Kari Lezama said. "She feeds him. And she sits there and pets him and takes him inside.

"I can't believe this woman takes my cat into her house instead of letting him alone outside."

Taylor said Tez seeks affection, not food. "He wants to be loved," she said. "He wants to be petted. He needs to be indoors."

She rejects the Lezamas' opinion that Tez is content. "I was raised on a farm and a cat is not livestock that lives outdoors," Taylor said. "As a cat gets older, it prefers a different kind of life.

"How would you like to live in a garage?"

She has threatened to keep turning Tez in to animal control as a stray if the Lezamas don't do something.

Tez hasn't always roamed neighborhoods, Nicholas Lezama said. Before the family moved to Colorado Springs a year ago, the cat stayed in a large, fenced back yard.

But University Park rules don't permit privacy fences, Lezama said. So Tez is allowed to roam something Lezama concedes also violates the rules.

The Lezamas are growing more upset each day by the frequent calls from Taylor regarding the cat.

"She is a nice, sweet little old lady who wants to feed every animal in the neighborhood," Nicholas Lezama said. "She has a kind heart.

"But I'm getting really frustrated. She needs to stop feeding the cat."

Others say the Lezamas could keep Tez happy and confined if they simply invest in a cat cage.

Carmen Gaudreau of All Creatures Feed and Pet Supply on South Eighth Street said large cages are growing in popularity for indoor and outdoor cats.

"Cats are a den animal by nature," Gaudreau said. "Cat cages reproduce their natural living conditions in the wild."

The cages also protect furniture and carpet while their owners are away.

They even work outdoors, said Hannah Polmer, owner of three cats in the Broadmoor area.

"I had a cat pen built for my three cats," she said. "It's wood and chicken wire. They can be long and narrow and attached to your garage. Or climb the side of your house so the cat can go in and out a window.

"Most of our cat problems," Polmer said, "could be solved if people just built these pens."


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